Go Not Gentle
by teethlikedog
Summary: [Twin Town] Coordination and escalation. [JeremyJulian, incest]


Fic for an obscure film where everyone has Welsh accents and every other sentence is punctuated with the word "fuck". Contains semi-graphic sibling incest, spoilers for the entire film, and liberal use of profanity, which is only fitting under the circumstances.

_**Go Not Gentle**_

Hash and pills and prescription drugs that pensioners sell for a tenner, and long desperate huffs from a glue bottle when there's nothing else going, a litre of cider and a kebab at the end of the night, and oh yeah, that's the fucking life. They like fast cars and dogs, don't like community service or their probation officer, are united in monosyllabic reticence in the face of his attempts to reach them. They know how to run and how to take a punch, but fighting back has never been their strong point, too scrawny and awkward in their own bodies, their individual motions lacking the grace of their combined actions.

Coordination is the key to everything they do, talking and thinking in tandem, synchronously or at least concurrently. It's no sort of telepathy, just brains that work alike, wired up and fucked up in exactly the same way, coordinated in larceny and vandalism and revenge; they don't even have to discuss it, just a quick glance to confirm intent and they're always thinking the same thing anyway. Never any follower or leader in their actions, despite Jeremy's three year advantage, just perfect unity of thought and deed.

Things tend to escalate between them. Maybe it's because there's two of them, they spur each other on, force things in drastic and unexpected directions, and they push at each other until someone else incurs their attention, and then they push as one. It's all football trivia and dares, and the forfeits grow with every round, _take a hit and hold it for ten seconds, fifteen seconds_, sitting in the bath while the water grows tepid and grimy, cannabis smoke stinging half-shut eyes, limbs slack and hands splayed flat on the tiles like pale spiders, and if the dares take an odd turn _(bet you're too fucking chicken to touch it)_ it's not a big thing, they have no concept of boundaries when it comes to each other, no idea that anything involving the two of them could be strange or wrong in any way, and with identical skinny fingers and knobby wrists and the same hitched half-gasps you could almost imagine it's your own hand.

Things tend to escalate, and the thing with the poodle is only right after the way Cartwright screwed over their dad, and that's an end to it as far as they're concerned (because they're vengeful but don't hold a grudge, a turn for a turn and that's all). By the time they're on the golf course they're feeling pretty fucking at peace with the world, and Jeremy lies on his back amidst a constellation of golf balls and stares up at the night sky, listening to the faint grunts of exertion that accompany Julian's swings of the five iron. The cool, damp grass feels fucking great, and later, with his t-shirt rucked up and his trousers yanked down around his hips it's even better, the manicured grass soft on his back and Julian's hand rough on his dick, and all he can see is stars. They fall asleep curled around the seventh hole, and in the morning they wake to find that the world has ended. Jeremy lights a joint with shaking fingers, sits with his arm slung around Julian's shoulder and suddenly realises that it's just the two of them, and Julian's his little brother so that makes him head of the family, and how the fuck is he supposed to do that?

They cry for a while, and then they stop, and decide (without ever discussing it, because they never have to) that they're going to _kill _them. Maybe just the bastards who did this, or maybe everyone they meet, they haven't quite decided on that yet.

The way of the transgressor is fucking hard.

Adie always called them stupid but it isn't true: they are clever boys, inventive boys, creative when it comes to destruction, and the way they leave Bryn Cartwright has a certain sadistic flair to it. He suffers before he dies, they can imagine it even if they're not there to see it; did he shit his pants, Jeremy wonders, before the garage door opened, before the cord pulled taut and snapped his neck like a chicken's? As for Terry, he just deserves what he gets, and they've never heard the phrase _poetic justice _but burying their dad at sea along with the bastard who killed him, yeah, that feels right. They watch as the water covers Terry's mouth, his nose, listen to his choked, gurgling pleas and when he can't shout anymore they see his eyes still wide and screaming before the sea swallows him, and there is no pleasure in it, just the sense of a necessary task completed.

_D'you think this boat'll get us to Morocco?_

_I dunno._

_Think we've got enough petrol?_

_Aye, probably._

Their hands meet on the throttle and they laugh into the dark, and if they don't have enough petrol, they've got each other.


End file.
